What Is Legal and Illegal Gambling?
Online gambling is any type of betting conducted online. This includes casinos, live casinos and online sports betting. The first online gambling site opened to the public, was lottery ticketing for the famous Liechtenstein International Poker Tournament in October 1994. Since then there have been many other online gambling sites developed, each with their own unique software, different marketing approaches and different means of payment. While all of these types of online sites are free to use, there are some that charge a fee depending on which site you choose to play at.
One of the main problems with offshore gambling is the fact that the laws of various countries often differ from the laws of the United Kingdom or the US. Therefore if you are playing at an online site in the UK, for example, laws relating to rigging, fraud and money laundering will not usually apply to you, whereas if you were playing at a site in the Ukraine, Russian law would prevail. In this main article you will find information on a few of the main legal differences between online gambling in the UK and offshore gambling.
According to information from the World Gambling Commission, online gambling is not legal in the UK or in most parts of Europe except for certain islands. If you wish to gamble online in the UK then you must register with the Gambling Registration Authority (GAAP). The main office for this is in Manchester but others can be found across the country as well as in Scotland. You can also find links to the official websites of the Gambling Commission in the main article below. The information in this article is based on UK law and is presented as a general guide only.
A few of the games online are based on lotteries such as betting on horse races, European roulette, bingo, lotto, slot machines, horse racing betting and bingo. A lot of these games can be played for free and many more are available at a low cost. Lotteries are a well protected game by law and the Gambling Registration Authority is responsible for running them. If you wish to play a lotteries then the key things to remember are that you must be at least eighteen years old, you must have a valid ID and your winnings must be reported to the Gambling Commission.
As regards to offshore gambling you have a few options. If you wish to do so then you will need to open an offshore bank account in another country. If you choose to remain in the UK then you will be responsible for reporting all winnings and losses to the Gambling Commission. The U.K. has very strict laws regarding its people and there is a lot of surveillance done to make sure that the law is fully observed. An important thing to remember when you are doing online gambling is that you must treat it just like any other form of commerce. This means that if you become bankrupt or suffer other financial problems then you must inform the relevant authorities about it.
All Online Gambling operations must abide by the UK law and it is illegal for anyone to operate a UK based Internet gambling site without obtaining the proper authorisation. If you are in doubt as to whether a site is proper and legal then it is always better to leave it and go elsewhere. While there are some really good reputable online gambling operators in the uk, there are also many that operate illegally and are thus breaking the law. The ukraine authorities are particularly hostile to foreign gambling sites, but this does not mean that all Internet gambling activity is illegal.